A typical data storage system stores and retrieves data for one or more external host devices. Conventional data storage systems typically include processing circuitry and a set of disk drives electrically coupled to the processing circuitry. The processing circuitry includes one or more ports, such as Ethernet ports, that allow the host devices to connect to the processing circuitry. The processing circuitry is typically configured to perform load and store operations on the set of disk drives on behalf of the host devices.
In certain data storage systems, the disk drives of the data storage system are distributed among one or more separate disk drive enclosures and processing circuitry serves as a front-end to the disk drive enclosures. The processing circuitry presents the disk drives of the enclosures to the host device as a single, logical storage location and allows the host device to access the disk drives such that the individual disk drives and disk drive enclosures are transparent to the host device.